Evasion Techniques...what does your horse adopt??

yaffsimone1

yaffsimone1

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Following a nice hack with my TB mare, me and my co rider got onto the discussion of evasion. Not evasion through pain or fear but simply through the idea that work stinks and it is best avoided.

When being asked to work my small, yet very powerful and quick cob loves to grab the bit, ram his nose into his chest and do one, whilst my ex racer thinks the key is to just STOP and switch off or failing that, ewe bend.

I'm interested in hearing what other techniques your horses adopt, my reason for asking this is my ex racer is quickly learning that i've cottoned onto her techniques and I swear she is conjuring up some new methods to take me by surprise!
 
my horse when trying to be naughty will adopt the stop spin and pretend to flee routine which i've now cracked by holding my whip diagonally across her neck from right to left (she always spins to the left) so when she tryed to spin and go she ran into the whip and quickly span back the other way, she only did it a few times before giving up as it wasnt working but more commonly and mainly when hacking she will adopt 'false outline' she looks pretty and does all the right things but is just fixed and isnt acctually listening and wont flex in either direction this one is particularly annoying but its just a case of keeping her busy lots of transitions to prevent it or waiting it out and coaxing her out of it before she realises i've cottoned on to what shes doing - i've learnt that if i force the issue it gets worse and thats when the spinning comes in but if im really tactful we can divert the issue and her attention onto something else, like a quicktransition to canter or a halting walking halting walking. another common one is spooking at nothing this one is generally harder but i just ignor her and she eventually forgets to spook!
 
My TB gelding goes in for a cuddle when you go to put his bridle on, he gets so soft and cuddly and with his eyes closed he leans into your arms and loves nothing more than his face stroked and soothing words whispered in his ear :rolleyes:... That last about 30 seconds and then its bridle on and he gives a big sigh :o

He is the least TB 'type' I and friends have ever met, honestly this horse is so laid back he is practically horizontal! :D
 
My girlie does the lean, lean, lean whizz technique which on the left rein is extremely effective(my left ankle is duff so not very good and getting leg on). After 30minutes of holding half a tonne of horse up, my arm no longer works and I have had trouble opening doors for the rest of the day in the past. Now I make sure her bit is in the right place, zip tie her mouth shut (grackle noseband) and that seems to help! If all else fails she goes for the Mcgyver dive which involves going sideways suddenly at speed, luckerly I'm tall and shes not, so I stay on. Sometimes there is something to shy at other times there isn't, sometimes we've seen it before but the novelty doesn't wear off. The only choice here is to really ride her hard past the offending spot, horses can't multitask so if you give them too much to do they can't muck about so much. Which for my girl means leg on constantly and push push with my seat, there is a momment of lag before she gives in, and everytime after she needs less hassleing!
 
LeannePip said:
my horse when trying to be naughty will adopt the stop spin and pretend to flee routine which i've now cracked by holding my whip diagonally across her neck from right to left (she always spins to the left) so when she tryed to spin and go she ran into the whip and quickly span back the other way, she only did it a few times before giving up as it wasnt working but more commonly and mainly when hacking she will adopt 'false outline' she looks pretty and does all the right things but is just fixed and isnt acctually listening and wont flex in either direction this one is particularly annoying but its just a case of keeping her busy lots of transitions to prevent it or waiting it out and coaxing her out of it before she realises i've cottoned on to what shes doing - i've learnt that if i force the issue it gets worse and thats when the spinning comes in but if im really tactful we can divert the issue and her attention onto something else, like a quicktransition to canter or a halting walking halting walking. another common one is spooking at nothing this one is generally harder but i just ignor her and she eventually forgets to spook!
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Like yours, mine always spun to the left but that is all she did, she wouldn't spin and play up, just spin and continue walking forward as if to say 'i'm doing it because I can!'...we soon put a stop to it but now she looks for something else to do and standing on the spot seems to be the favourite (and the most annoying)
 
My cob used to raise his head and set his jaw but we have just started getting serious with lessons again recently and schooling and just as I thought we were solving that problem and starting to work well (which he is most of the time) he has now started to tuck his chin in and run out through the shoulder! but we are starting to see some progress with this too so god only knows what he will come up with next.
 
My daughter has a wb and when he's that way out, he'll pop his head up just enough so she can't reach to put his bridle over his ears. He doesn't bother doing it with me as i can reach that bit further as i'm a little taller than her. Crafty thing!
 
The question I always ask myself is, "If this horse had been trained and were ridden regularly by Carl Hester/Charlotte Dujardin/Mark Rashid/Buck Brannaman, would it be putting this much energy into avoiding work or the effect of the aid, finding new "evasions," or faithfully repeating old ones? When the answer is no - and it always is -- it means I need to look at how I am training and figure out what I need to improve.

Obviously if you're training something new that the horse does not yet understand, they will try out stuff and try to find the path of least resistance (a good trainer will make the path of least resistance the behaviour they want). I am referring to times when you have to battle the same old behaviours on regular basis in order to get your horse to do something it supposedly knows how to do.
 
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I.....am.......sooooo........scared........

That he go's solid and totally unaware I exist or am asking him anything at all- just fixates on some random object.
Funnily he can power trot past the same things coming home ;) weird that!
 
Does self harm count? In the last two months alone have had mystery lameness then day before being due to be ridden again takes a finger sized layer of skin off his back just where the saddle would sit, wait for that to heal, sat on twice then pulled his shoe at weekend and stood on the toe clip so now on box rest - repeat this process throughout the previous year and substitute in other random minor injuries! Keep telling myself he's not doing it on purpose.....
 
Spooking! I always know when I'm pushing the right buttons to make my horse work properly in the school! As soon as we get to the transition from warm up to serious work, she puts in the "death throws" to try and intimidate me and get me off her case. Everything is suddenly terrifying and she will even start spooking at the fence, the gate and the mounting block which have been there since the beginning of time :-)
 
Caol Ila said:
The question I always ask myself is, "If this horse had been trained and were ridden regularly by Carl Hester/Charlotte Dujardin/Mark Rashid/Buck Brannaman, would it be putting this much energy into avoiding work or the effect of the aid, finding new "evasions," or faithfully repeating old ones? When the answer is no - and it always is -- it means I need to look at how I am training and figure out what I need to improve.

.
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Yes very often the rider doesn't realise that s/he is actually asking the horse to do exactly what it is doing, by accident. If more people examined (and corrected) their own riding, rather than blaming the horse, there would be many happier horses and far better riders.
 
Football. Random I know. Mine plays loose with a big gym ball. He quickly realised that I found it cute when he chases it around, so if he finds the ball in the arena during a schooling session he will make a bee line for it and will pursue it until he thinks I have forgotten about schooling. he then looses interest in the ball until I decide its time to work, I take up the contact and he decides that the ball is once again the most interesting thing he has ever seen. All I have to do is hop off and hide the ball (or hide it before I bring him in) and he gets back to the task in hand.
 
Larry flings his head to make you slip the reins or pulls forward hard to the same effect. I think I've worked out how to stop this now and he's been a lot better recently. If the reins are long he doesn't have to take a contact, he can walk as fast as he likes and not work properly!
 
Once he has stopped self harming and is back in work he can do most of the following in any order:
Spook - just to check you are awake, normally at an inanimate object he has been past approx 20 times already (schooling)
Go slow and sniff the ground when on a loose rein (more hacking)
Stop, plant and refuse to move, will only then move once you've either got off or something else has proved it's not scary (when available, more so hacking, has also done this trick in the MIDDLE of a huge puddle after freaking out about being in it)
If wind/rain available use as an excuse to turn bum to wind/rain and stop, maybe forced on a couple of strides no more than 4 but then repeat
If really unkeen about being sat on resorts to rearing, going backwards and spinning round

The rest of the time he is the loveliest thing to ride and be around but has his 'moments' :)

OH's horse will do a lovely spin to the right to go where he pleases as opposed to school/hack/jump/go, he's also developed the 'spooking at things he shouldn't'. He has the slooooooow tactic too!
 
poiuytrewq said:
I.....am.......sooooo........scared........

That he go's solid and totally unaware I exist or am asking him anything at all- just fixates on some random object.
Funnily he can power trot past the same things coming home ;) weird that!
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Yes, our spinning was initially the 'fear' of large lorries....it wasn't fear at all but more of an excuse to have a little go for when we head for home 18 wheelers can come past us and madam doesn't even raise an eyebrow, yet on the way out its totally different!
 
Mine shortens and tenses his neckin response to almost anything. He does do it when I am too strong with my aids, but also does it of his own free will when being distracted or losing focus. He's a naturally tense little arab pony so he's already doing quite well focusing 99% of the time so I'll let him off tensing when we go down the centre line to a big arena in the middle of a country show ground which was the last time he did it!
 
My mare after 13yrs has perfected the stop technique.
This involves going from any pace to an immediate halt and is unable to move in any direction.
In the past I have done EVERYTHING to get her to move, coaxing, hitting (yes a sharp smack), nothing works.
However sitting with her and ignoring her gets her moving again- if she could speak she would be saying "why are we standing still? Lets go!" and then resumes the pace which we were traveling at before we stopped.
When in a field, mildly irritating, when crossing a road and this happens.....................................
And personally I don't think that Carl, Charlotte..... (enter personal horsey celeb fav) would make a blind bit of difference!
 
My mare is a lessons horse and she is hilarious, I love watching all her little ploys - they are all very polite, but they get the result she wants, which is to stop!
Her two most successful tactics are:
1. The ever-decreasing circle. When riding on a circle, her circles get smaller and smaller and smaller around the instructor until she is slap bang in front of them with a 'save me!' expression on her angelic face.
2. Sighing. With the less confident rider, she will emit a deep sigh. Often the rider then panicks that they are asking too much/not being clear enough/boring her so they quit doing what they were doing before and the whole ship grinds to a halt. Pony looks both smug and angelic - I have no idea how she manages that look!
 
My lovely mare will start whinnying when we get to the hard work point. Sometimes the conversation between her and her field mates is so loud, I can't hear my instructor who is less than 10 feet away.
It's quite sweet really; she does it for reassurance. When we're out and about she also will whinny to all and sundry. She also does the ever decreasing circle as described by Hen; again she likes to go to people for reassurance.
My older mare is the best time keeper ever. My lessons are 45 minutes long, and at that point, she downs tools. I swear that horse wears a watch!
 
Canter - weeeee, yeh!!! (not running off or being strong, he just doesn't have the patience for walk and trot at the beginning of a schooling session some days - cantering is much more fun :D)

Once he's tired he will often do the gate passing sloooow down.
 
When asking a young horse I used to ride to work correctly he would revert to a Spanish walk, I know it was because he found engaging his back end difficult but it was a hilarious evasion, he would do laps of the arena doing it, and in trot would stop and bounce/jump on the spot. He was a lot of fun to ride though and very rewarding when everything came together.
 
Bella, PRETENDS to do what she's about to do (buck, bolt, nap nap) I catch her and think I have won and I relax. She then gives her biggest effort to do what she was pretending to do. The look of" ha ha ha I got ya " always makes me smile
 
Elvis said:
When asking a young horse I used to ride to work correctly he would revert to a Spanish walk, I know it was because he found engaging his back end difficult but it was a hilarious evasion, he would do laps of the arena doing it, and in trot would stop and bounce/jump on the spot. He was a lot of fun to ride though and very rewarding when everything came together.
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Mine also does spanish walk at random points. He isn't trying to evade though, he does it when I am asking something new, he tries so hard to find the right answer and he is pretty sure that spanish walk should be the answer to most things. When that doesn't get the desired response from me he will try other things til he figures it out. Its very sweet.
 
The Eel trick! Stress-head Orange Mare literally turns into a slinky when she's got her knickers in a knot about something. Quarters swing one way, shoulders another, the second I correct, she swings the other way. It's a sort of whole body flail. Her other favourite is wall-of-death, although I've mostly got her out of that now. Both are leftovers from some numpties riding her when she was at an equestrian college. She also used to headshake violently at any sort of contact, but showing her how to work in self-carriage fixed that.

The youngster's default evasion is to stand on two legs :-S

A friend's horse has an entertaining one. He stops dead and pretends he needs to pee!
 
My youngster tilts her head 90 degrees to the right! Its always right, I went through bit changes, latex round bit, lessons etc. She just does it when she's had enough or is fustrated at being behind hacking and asked to back off the horse infront!
 
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